Well, I made it! I landed in Miami last Sunday, March 13th and then later that day in Houston, Texas where I was blessed to spend a few days with my brother and cousins. We watched Dumb and Dumber and Inside Job, a documentary about the Wall Street direction of our government. Welcome to the U.S.
Pat (my brother) and I also learned how to shoot a 1911 Springfield pistol and an AR-15. Welcome to Texas.
Wednesday March 16th I arrived in San Diego to the waiting arms of Joshua. Welcome home! (Sort of). The past 5 nights have not been spent consecutively in the same place and I'm still, in a sense, living out of my backpack. All of this to say, it's been an absolute blessing to be home and to have so many people with whom to share stories and memories and to contemplate the big "What's next?" question.*
One of the highlights of being home was going to Journey Church with Joshua's family and hearing Pastor Edouard from Carrefour, Haiti! It filled me with such joy to hear Creole and to speak with him and his translator after the service. It was such a high to have to come down from that I feel as though this may be the beginning of the infamous "Readjustment Phase" - the questioning, the frustration, the reminiscing and the checking of plane ticket prices for a trip back in the summer!!!
Much love to you all and thank you for all of the prayers that got me home safe!
*At this point, the "What's Next" question looks like it will be answered with a return to San Diego this summer to live with my best friend Ashley, look for a job and begin taking Nursing pre-requisites at a community college. Si Bondye vle : )
Monday, March 21, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Last Round of Goodbyes
I knew that this last week would fly by, but it is still hard to see it ending so soon.
This week has been full of scrubs and hand sanitizer and "take these and come back in June." I have renewed interest in medicine and am considering pursuing a nursing degree. I was able to do so much hands-on (with gloves) learning here, I made and gave shots, removed IVs, changed IVs, held tiny little babies while we gave them shots, and comforted so many people during their operations, giving them consolation that the pain was only going to last a little while longer. I have seen the most beautiful smiles, showed women their babies inside of them and helped them calculate their due dates. I've counted pills and passed out chocolate, held hands and danced with two tiny old women on International Women's Day.
One woman in particular will always stay in my heart. Her name is Laurencia and she is married with 5 children. She came in on Monday morning with a cyst on her upper inner thigh; it truly resembled a testicle and caused her quite a bit of pain when she sat down. She had had it for the past 9 years after her 3rd child was born but it had only recently begun to hurt. I wandered into the operating room right as she was lying on the table and was asked to translate what Dr. Bill and Critical Care Nurse Levi, were about to do. I wound up sitting on a stool at the head of her bed, holding her hand and talking with her for the majority of the operation. She smiled the whole time, and it lit up the room. After the operation was finished we gave her some money so that she could pay the moto driver to go extra slow on her way home to Gonaives. I was struggling to imagine how she would straddle a motorcycle for a 12 mile ride on bumpy dirt roads after having this surgery in her groin. Gratefully, Pastor Delamy corrected us by explaining "this ministry has vehicles for many reasons and taking her home is one of them." We told her to keep the money and use it so that she and her husband could come in and get his feet checked out. (She had asked if we could give her cream for his excema. Thankfully, Dr. Bill said no, because when they both came in Thursday morning, it was not excema that he had!) I walked into the clinic Thursday morning and there she was, first in line and greeting me with her beautiful smile. She told me that her husband was waiting outside, his name is Markeuty, and that I should find him. I walked outside, said hello to a man with a huge smile and then turned to face a crowd of perhaps 70 people and thought "how am I going to find her husband out here?" I simply said "Markeuty?" and of course, it was the man with the huge grin. The entire time we treated him - including a very painful foot bath, he smiled. The two of them have to be the sweetest couple in all of Haiti and I was absolutely blessed to have met them! And to think they are only 2 out of the 900+ patients we saw here this week!
We're leaving Terre Blanche tomorrow morning to stay the night at Kaliko, a hotel on the beach just north of Port-au-Prince so that we might catch an early flight on Sunday. It's going to be hard to leave this place.
The past 10 weeks have been some of the best weeks of my life. I am grateful for all of the friends and memories I've made and will cherish them always. I'm also terribly grateful for all of the people here who are now praying with me that I can find a job in the States that will enable me to "vini anko byento" (come again very soon).
Si Bondye Vle.
This week has been full of scrubs and hand sanitizer and "take these and come back in June." I have renewed interest in medicine and am considering pursuing a nursing degree. I was able to do so much hands-on (with gloves) learning here, I made and gave shots, removed IVs, changed IVs, held tiny little babies while we gave them shots, and comforted so many people during their operations, giving them consolation that the pain was only going to last a little while longer. I have seen the most beautiful smiles, showed women their babies inside of them and helped them calculate their due dates. I've counted pills and passed out chocolate, held hands and danced with two tiny old women on International Women's Day.
One woman in particular will always stay in my heart. Her name is Laurencia and she is married with 5 children. She came in on Monday morning with a cyst on her upper inner thigh; it truly resembled a testicle and caused her quite a bit of pain when she sat down. She had had it for the past 9 years after her 3rd child was born but it had only recently begun to hurt. I wandered into the operating room right as she was lying on the table and was asked to translate what Dr. Bill and Critical Care Nurse Levi, were about to do. I wound up sitting on a stool at the head of her bed, holding her hand and talking with her for the majority of the operation. She smiled the whole time, and it lit up the room. After the operation was finished we gave her some money so that she could pay the moto driver to go extra slow on her way home to Gonaives. I was struggling to imagine how she would straddle a motorcycle for a 12 mile ride on bumpy dirt roads after having this surgery in her groin. Gratefully, Pastor Delamy corrected us by explaining "this ministry has vehicles for many reasons and taking her home is one of them." We told her to keep the money and use it so that she and her husband could come in and get his feet checked out. (She had asked if we could give her cream for his excema. Thankfully, Dr. Bill said no, because when they both came in Thursday morning, it was not excema that he had!) I walked into the clinic Thursday morning and there she was, first in line and greeting me with her beautiful smile. She told me that her husband was waiting outside, his name is Markeuty, and that I should find him. I walked outside, said hello to a man with a huge smile and then turned to face a crowd of perhaps 70 people and thought "how am I going to find her husband out here?" I simply said "Markeuty?" and of course, it was the man with the huge grin. The entire time we treated him - including a very painful foot bath, he smiled. The two of them have to be the sweetest couple in all of Haiti and I was absolutely blessed to have met them! And to think they are only 2 out of the 900+ patients we saw here this week!
We're leaving Terre Blanche tomorrow morning to stay the night at Kaliko, a hotel on the beach just north of Port-au-Prince so that we might catch an early flight on Sunday. It's going to be hard to leave this place.
The past 10 weeks have been some of the best weeks of my life. I am grateful for all of the friends and memories I've made and will cherish them always. I'm also terribly grateful for all of the people here who are now praying with me that I can find a job in the States that will enable me to "vini anko byento" (come again very soon).
Si Bondye Vle.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Next stop... Houston?
I can't believe it but I'm at my final destination (sort of).
My last few days in Leogane were rather eventful, the morning after I posted about my crazy weekend, we had an earthquake at 4:10am. It was small and didn't last very long, but it was enough to get hearts pumping and minds racing. It was either a 4.6 or a 3.8 (magnitudes different I realize, but in Haiti news is all "yo di" (rumor) and I'm only repeating what I was told). I was in the middle of some strange dream and proceeded to get caught in my mosquito net while trying to escape my bunk. I wasn't panicked, thank the Lord, but I was a little shaky afterward and spent the rest of the morning lying in the middle of the courtyard watching the stars fade and praying for all of the children who are growing up in such unstability.
The next 3 days were full of concrete and power tools and lots of laughter but all with the tinge of sadness that is becoming all too familiar. I left Leogane this morning at the break of dawn and spent the entire day in a car going to, waiting at, and going from the airport all of the way up north past Gonaives. This is an absolutely gorgeous, breathtaking, heartbreakingly beautiful country and I am very happy to not be sitting in a car right now! I will be spending the next week speaking Creole and taking vitals for up to 1,000 patients at a rural clinc with a team from the Northwest. This should round out my experiences rather well as I will now have some medical experience to add to the list of responses to the ever-popular question "so what have you been doing in Haiti?"
This has been quite the whirlwind adventure, and I'm still struggling to believe I've been here over two months already. Everyplace I have gone now, I have been invited, begged even in some cases, to stay longer. Everytime, I have had to say no after wrestling with the temptation to throw it all in the wind and cancel my return ticket. I am glad I have said no and kept on with this journey, but now the end really is in sight. I leave Haiti a week from Sunday and I am praying that between now and then God will prepare my heart for leaving and also prepare me for the culture shock of visiting a cousin in Texas!
Thank you all for the prayers and continued love and support. I'll try to post one more time before Texas, but if not...next stop: Houston!
My last few days in Leogane were rather eventful, the morning after I posted about my crazy weekend, we had an earthquake at 4:10am. It was small and didn't last very long, but it was enough to get hearts pumping and minds racing. It was either a 4.6 or a 3.8 (magnitudes different I realize, but in Haiti news is all "yo di" (rumor) and I'm only repeating what I was told). I was in the middle of some strange dream and proceeded to get caught in my mosquito net while trying to escape my bunk. I wasn't panicked, thank the Lord, but I was a little shaky afterward and spent the rest of the morning lying in the middle of the courtyard watching the stars fade and praying for all of the children who are growing up in such unstability.
The next 3 days were full of concrete and power tools and lots of laughter but all with the tinge of sadness that is becoming all too familiar. I left Leogane this morning at the break of dawn and spent the entire day in a car going to, waiting at, and going from the airport all of the way up north past Gonaives. This is an absolutely gorgeous, breathtaking, heartbreakingly beautiful country and I am very happy to not be sitting in a car right now! I will be spending the next week speaking Creole and taking vitals for up to 1,000 patients at a rural clinc with a team from the Northwest. This should round out my experiences rather well as I will now have some medical experience to add to the list of responses to the ever-popular question "so what have you been doing in Haiti?"
This has been quite the whirlwind adventure, and I'm still struggling to believe I've been here over two months already. Everyplace I have gone now, I have been invited, begged even in some cases, to stay longer. Everytime, I have had to say no after wrestling with the temptation to throw it all in the wind and cancel my return ticket. I am glad I have said no and kept on with this journey, but now the end really is in sight. I leave Haiti a week from Sunday and I am praying that between now and then God will prepare my heart for leaving and also prepare me for the culture shock of visiting a cousin in Texas!
Thank you all for the prayers and continued love and support. I'll try to post one more time before Texas, but if not...next stop: Houston!
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